NATO: Old is gold, but not always

Sergey Strokan is a journalist, essayist and a poet. He is also a political commentator with Russia's “Kommersant” Publishing House. Mr. Strokan hosts “Red Line”, a weekly analytical program broadcast by The Voice of Russia in New York City. He is the author of three poetry collections, a winner of the Maximilian Voloshin International Literary Award (2010) and a member of Union of Russian Writers.

US F15C Eagle jet fighters prepares are pictured on the tarmac at air force base during the Lithuanian - NATO air force exercise at the air force base near Siauliai Zuokniai, Lithunaia, on April 1, 2014. (AFP Photo / Petras Malukas) / AFP

This is not an April Fools' Day joke: at its ministerial meeting in Brussels NATO has put the brakes on all military and civilian cooperation with Moscow in a response to Russia’s actions in Ukraine.

In one fell swoop NATO bravely brushed off the dust from its old
Cold War deterrence doctrine. It looked more than a coincidence,
and rather an act full of symbolism, when NATO foreign ministers
decided to beef up the collective security of 28 member-states to
counter “Russia’s misconduct” on the eve of NATO’s 65th
anniversary, unmarked by fanfare.

It is high time to recall that the North Atlantic Treaty
Organization was founded four years after the end of the Second
World War – on April 4, 1949, in Washington – to deter communist
Russia and ‘Big Brother’s’ Eastern satellites, which were rising
from the ruins of post-war Europe under Red banners, with
communist mantras on their lips.

Therefore, the notorious Article 5 of the NATO Charter spelled
out the principle of ‘collective defense’ – the
cornerstone of European and transatlantic security as was seen by
alliance’s founding-fathers, alarmed by the rise of Soviet empire
and spread of its influence globally.

Ironically, in its operations in the last six-and-a-half decades
the alliance has referred to the most-cherished Article 5 of its
‘Security Bible’ only once. It happened in the
post-Communist world, during the US-led military operation in
Afghanistan in 2001, launched by President George W. Bush shortly
after September 11 to punish those responsible for deadly attacks
thousands of miles away from Manhattan – in the dusty fields of
sun-soaked Central Asia.

However, more than a decade later, as US and NATO military
contingent was preparing for the much-awaited withdrawal from
Afghanistan by the end of 2014, the alliance looked more like an
ageing giant – over-bureaucratized, getting increasingly bored
and lazy, losing the very sense of existence and struggling to
invent its own rejuvenating ‘wonder drug’. As they said
in the corridors of NATO headquarters in Brussels with years once
mighty alliance transformed into another NATO – ‘No action, talk
only’ (cynics inside the organization also called it ‘North
Atlantic Travel Office’).

Up until the Ukrainian crisis broke out and Crimea voted at the
historic referendum to sail away from Kiev and return to the
Russian harbor, the question ‘What to do next after
Afghanistan?’ looked like a real disaster for NATO
strategists. As a result, the renewed agenda for the next NATO
summit in Wales, scheduled for this September was coined in a
vague formula of ‘combatting terrorism and
cyber-threats’.

As the day of the Wales summit was nearing, voices in European
NATO member-states, gripped by austerity and belt-tightening
measures called on considerable downsizing of military budgets
and reducing NATO combat potential to ‘minimal level’. They saw
no reason for further defense spending as Article 5 of NATO
Charter looked like an anachronism.

The controversy over NATO and its identity crisis revealed the
plain truth: for survival NATO needs a good adversary. It is only
the sword of Damocles threat – real or imaginary - that 65 years
after its birth can give the alliance a chance to prove it can
still fit into the 21st-century reality. The war in Iraq, which
evoked strong reservations from US key European partners and
leading NATO member-states – Germany and France proved that
alliance’s former political mechanism in present-day reality can
hinder US unilateral effort rather than support it. As it turned
out, the most valuable US partners in Iraq were not Europeans,
privately scolded as ‘dwarfs’ in Washington, but countries
outside NATO ready to join US-led multinational ‘coalitions
of willing’.

Meanwhile, Ukrainian crisis has put NATO machine back on track
and pumped a new steam in the initial security doctrine. The
newly-discovered ‘Russian threat’ has cemented NATO ranks, making
alliance members to speak in one voice and show unity, rarely
seen in recent years.

“Through its actions Russia has undermined the principles on
which our partnership is built, and has breached its own
international commitments. So we can’t go on going business as
usual,” NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen
announced at this week NATO foreign ministers meeting in
Brussels.

While some downplay Rasmussen’s harsh rhetoric on Russia calling
him outgoing NATO head (he is going to be replaced by newly
appointed secretary-general Jens Stoltenberg from October 1),
Anders Fogh Rasmussen would still hold the NATO reins in the
coming months and would preside over the Wales summit. So he will
still have time to start the process of changing the NATO
security doctrine, which would see Russia as a dangerous and
unpredictable stranger, rather than a squabbling partner.

Well-placed diplomatic sources in Brussels say that in the wake
of the new reality the agenda of the Wales summit will be
drastically revamped. What is likely to come at the top of the
summit agenda is not some enigmatic cyber threat from the world
of computer reality, but the hastily-made security preparations
in Eastern Europe and Baltic republics to deter Russia.

In an outbreak of fresh activity to show NATO is ready to rise to
the ‘Russian challenge’, NATO foreign ministers in
Brussels announced the main points of the new security plan. It
is expected that NATO will offer regular air patrols over Baltic
States, boost the number of troops and aircraft stationed at its
airbase in Romania, increase its military presence in Poland,
conduct large-scale military drills of its members close to
Russian borders and intensify military cooperation with Ukraine.

The Eastward expansion doctrine – the bone of contention in
Russia’s relations with NATO from late ’90s is well and on the
table. The waiting list of potential NATO recruits includes
Montenegro, Macedonia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, as well as
Georgia.

Moreover, according to the leaks, the alliance members can
reconsider their stand on US tactical nuclear weapons, stationed
in Germany, Netherlands, Belgium, Italy and Turkey. Until the
Ukrainian crisis, public opinion in these countries was calling
on the authorities to remove the US nuclear arsenal from the Old
Continent. However, the new standoff with Russia comes as a
game-changer: it allows NATO strategists to keep their tail up
advocating US nukes remaining in Europe.

Thus, it is most likely that it was not Russia, but NATO which
failed to get out of the vicious circle of old stereotypes. Old
is gold, but not always, as NATO experience shows.

The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.